Incorporating mass balance concepts in total exposure studies

摘要

Total exposure studies require the monitoring of personal exposures to pollutants over all five routes of exposure: 1) inhaling air; 2) drinking water; 3) eating food; 4) uptake through the skin; 5) other unique inclidents such as tthumb sucking and chewing or smoking tobacco. To evaluate their potential effect on human health, the exposures via these five routes can be added as either a total applied dose or a total absorbed dose over the period of the s tudy (e.g., mg/kg body weight/day). Since the absorbed doses via routes 4 and 5 are not directly measurable in a field study the are commonly estimated from unvalidated models.